Kelly Wiley

Kelly graduated with a BA in Child Development from Chico State. She has worked with young children in licensed programs since 1983.

She owned and operated Golden Gate Music Together in San Francisco 2001-2016.

She created Golden Gate Children’s Art & Outdoor Explorations in the Fall of 2013. Her vision was and still is, to offer a Reggio Inspired Enrichment Program that allowed children to tinker and explore a wide range of materials and express themselves with many different mediums. To document their process and reflect back their ideas by asking questions. To provide a art & outdoor space that was the third teacher because it inspired creativity. To build strong relationships with and between children. To foster their development and to encourage joy.

Kelly was first exposed to Reggio Emilia in 1995 when working at the PG & E Children's Center in San Francisco. It was one of the first centers in the city to start implementing Reggio Emilia inspired classrooms. Funding from the center allowed for her to take part in local and nationwide trainings and roundtable Reggio Meetings. She has remained an active member of NAEYC and attends NAREA Conferences throughout the year. Kelly has attended Reggio Emilia,Italy trainings since the Fall of 2019.

Kelly attends workshops in Reggio Emilia, Italy every Spring in April and in November. She often brings Teachers with her to attend these workshops.

This Spring 2026 she will attend workshops hosted by NAREA in Pistoia, Italy in April & Reggio Emilia, Italy in May.

Eliana Bustamante

Ellie grew up in Bolinas, CA where she first began working with children in her mother’s summer camp. She quickly developed a deep love of playing, art making and conversing with little ones and went on to study Early Childhood Education at Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz.

She loves to hike, play soccer, swim in the ocean and kick back with family and friends. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor’s degree in Art in 2017, and lives in San Francisco.

Attended Teacher Training workshop in Reggio Emilia, Italy Spring of 2023

Todd Kuehnau

Todd studied Fine Art at Chico State, and became an oil painter and muralist artist, dabbling in acting. He focused on teaching upon moving to the Island of Maui in 2018, First teaching High School children on the spectrum as a behavioral specialist and then became a preschool teacher for the Holy Innocents school in Lahaina in 2021. After spending several years on the Island, Todd moved back to San Francisco to pursue a career teaching art and exploring nature with children. Todd’s passions include visual arts, music, and acting; both in films and onstage. His love for animals and saving endangered species has brought him back to the Bay Area. Driven by his love of art, animals, and working with children, he is so happy to be back in San Francisco where he feels at home.

Attended several art and nature camps in Northern California, and became a Registered Behavioral Technician.

Kelcey Christen

Kelcey Christen is a multidisciplinary conceptual artist living in San Francisco. She graduated from the University of California Berkeley, Art Practice in 2025 and since then has taught ceramics, drawing and sculpture at the Berkeley Art Studio and other bay area independent art studios. Through a range of recording devices, her work dances between drawing, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking, and sound. She looks at how controlled repetitive processes can both contain order and disorder, allowing freedom and expression to all artists. Her work focuses on collecting and foraging natural and recycled materials and processing them into beautiful working art materials. She is interested in the slowness involved in craft and art and the lessons we can learn from our unity with nature. She enjoys biking, sports, and music in her free time, and loves dogs.

Ximena Vilela

Ximena Vilela is a mixed media artist whose love for art began in early childhood. She holds a degree in fashion design and has spent years exploring a vibrant range of creative mediums, including sewing, textiles, sculpture, and acrylic on wood. She finds joy in experimenting, working with her hands, and bringing ideas to life through texture and color.

Based in the Bay Area, Ximena has worked in several art studios and Reggio inspired preschools, where she blends creativity, curiosity, and play into every experience. In addition to her artistic work, she also supports administrative operations, bringing organization and care to behind the scenes processes. Her work celebrates imagination, tactile exploration, and the beauty of artistic discovery.

Zizi Hayes

Zizi Hayes was born in Oakland and grew up in San Francisco, CA. They attended a Language immersion school in Elementary and Middle school where they learned to be fluent in Spanish. They grew up in a community where art and music had a heavy influence. As a child, Zizi partook in horseback riding (influenced by their grandmother who is very passionate about horses), dance, musical theater, and singing, with the occasional visual art interests, in things like drawing, painting, paper machete and linocut print making. Later on, Zizi attended UC Santa Cruz and got a B.A. in psychology. They were heavily inspired by the nature surrounding the campus and town, that now influences a lot of their interests, as well as their visual art. They enjoy drawing, painting, needle felting, beading, and is always trying to learn more and discover new mediums and techniques. Zizi has been working with children as an enrichment teacher since 2021, right as they graduated college, and has been an associate teacher at another Reggio Emilia inspired program. Zizi admires the Reggio approach to learning as it is student centered, emphasises that every child is competent, and focuses on art, play, and exploration. Zizi loves animals (especially their two cats), traveling, hiking, bike riding, camping, horse back riding, taking care of house plants, singing, crafting, cooking, and dancing, among many other things.

Attended Teacher Training in Reggio Emilia, Italy in April 2025.

Kylie Pyne

Kylie Pyne was raised in a small town in Idaho, developing an early deep appreciation for the outdoors and hiking, with Jackson Hole Wyoming only being an hour drive away from her childhood home. Kylie’s love towards working with children started early on, with her first job being teaching guitar and piano lessons to local family friends’ children. She later attended CalArts in Los Angeles, studying music composition, with a focus on Song writing and Cello. After her time at CalArts, she decided to take a different educational path and graduated with a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Idaho in 2022.

Being heavily inspired by her love for travel, reading, and the outdoors, Kylie embraces Reggio Emilia with an essence of adventure and vigor that helps foster and encourage children in their practice and play while in the studio. Her passions include sewing and up cycling clothing, painting, writing music, and anything outside!